hazardous drinking by first-year college-athletes: the...
TRANSCRIPT
Hazardous Drinking by First-Year College-Athletes:
The Differential Roles of Drinking Motives, Alcohol
Consequences, and Season Status
Important Webinar Features
Webinar Panelist
Dr. Jeffrey J. Milroy Associate Director; Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• B.S., Community Health Education
– SUNY Potsdam
– Student-athlete; Hockey
• MPH, Public Health Education
– University of North Carolina Greensboro
• DrPH, Public Health
– University of North Carolina Greensboro
Agenda
• Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness
• Student-athletes; a unique population
• The Study– Methods
– Measures
– Participants
– Results
– Limitations
– Discussion
Institute to Promote Athlete
Health & Wellness
The Institute for the Promotion of Athlete
Health and Wellness (IPAHW)• Mission Statement
– Work collaboratively with a variety of organizations to
provide educational resources and support through
evidence-based programming, training, and
research/evaluation to promote athlete health and
wellness thereby fostering lifelong athlete development.
• Vision
– To improve the health and wellness of athletes through
the translation of alcohol and other drug (AOD) and
mental health research to effective policies and
practices.
• What this potentially means for you…
– Comprehensive and evidence-based alcohol and other
drug prevention and mental health promotion services
available to all myPlaybook institutions.
Resources and Services Delivered by
IPAHW
• Provide alcohol & other drug and mental health assessment
services.
• myPlaybook & Coaches Assist
• Provide evaluation and technical support services for athlete health
& wellness initiatives
• Knowledge Base Inventory
– Online tool to disseminate best practice information specific to athlete
health and wellness issues
– Intended for athletics administrators, staff, and coaches (also
appropriate for Student Affairs professionals)
• Athlete Health & Wellness Institute Newsletter
• Monthly webinar series on timely athlete health & wellness
issues/topics
• Ongoing research and development related to athlete health a
wellness
A Unique Population• Student-athletes as a group at high-risk for heavy alcohol use.
• College student-athletes engaged in more heavy episodic drinking
occasions, endorsed drinking more on peak drinking occasions, and
reported getting drunk more frequently than their non-athlete peers
• Heavy episodic drinking exposes college student-athletes to a
number of psychosocial and physical alcohol-related negative
consequences such as:
– Academic consequences like missing class and performing poorly on a test,
– Athletic consequences like feeling sluggish in practice or competition
– Physiological consequences like memory loss
– Psychosocial consequences like driving while under the influence or engaging in
fight or argument because of alcohol use.
Title: Hazardous Drinking by First-Year College-
Athletes: The Differential Roles of Drinking
Motives, Alcohol Consequences, and Season
Status
Authors: Dr. Edward Wahesh, Dr. Jeffrey J. Milroy, Dr.
Todd F. Lewis, Dr. Muhsin M. Orsini, & Dr.
David L. Wyrick
Publication (in press): Journal of Alcohol and Drug Addiction
Purpose:
a. To explore differences between levels of risky drinking and alcohol
motives, negative consequences, and season status.
b. To explore the relationship between alcohol motives, negative
consequences, seasons status and risky drinking using an
established screening tool for college students.
The Study
MethodsParticipant Recruitment
• Participant recruitment occurred during a required course for all first-year
student-athletes.
Procedures
• Participants completed a brief questionnaire that included demographic
questions, the AUDIT-C (Bush, Kivlahan, McDonell, Fihn, & Bradley,
1998), the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire
(BYAACQ; Kahler, Strong, & Read, 2005), and the Athlete Drinking Scale
(ADS; Martens, Watson, Royland, & Beck, 2005).
Plan of Analysis
• Independent Sample t tests were used to explore group differences
between those who met the AUDIT-C criteria (risky drinking) and those
who didn’t.
• Logistic regression was used to explore the extent to which negative
consequences, and drinking motives accounted for varying levels of risky
drinking.
What We MeasuredAlcohol Use Disorder Identification Test - Consumption (AUDIT-C)
• i.e., risky drinking (based on frequency of drinking, number of drinks
consumed on a drinking day, and frequency of heavy drinking.
Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire
(BYAACQ)
• 24 psychosocial consequences of alcohol consumption (e.g., “I have
felt very sick to my stomach or thrown up after drinking”)
Athlete Drinking Scale (ADS)
• The ADS contains three subscales related to drinking motives:
1. Positive reinforcement (nine items)
2. Team/group (seven items)
3. Sport-related coping (three items).
• Higher scores reflect greater endorsement of specific reasons for
alcohol consumption.
Who Participated?Participants:
• Ultimately, 74 first year student-athletes all above the age of 18
participated in the study.
What We FoundGroup differences
• Students who met the AUDIT-C criteria (hazardous drinking)
exhibited significantly higher “athlete drinking motives” than students
who scored below the cut off.
• Hazardous drinkers also reported higher levels of sports-related
coping motives (drink to deal with poor performances), team/group
motives (drink to fit in with teammates), and positive reinforcement
motives (drink to celebrate athletic victories). Further, compared to
Hazardous drinkers reported a greater number of psychosocial
consequences.
• Categorical variables revealed no significant differences in age,
gender, or ethnicity between groups AUDIT-C groups.
• No differences were found in reported season status by group.
What We Found Continued• Based on the findings shared in the previous slide,
alcohol-related negative consequences, sports-related
coping motives, team/group motives, and positive
reinforcement motives were entered into a logistic
regression to determine which predictors accounted for
unique variance in the criterion variable, AUDIT-C risk
status.
• Interestingly, there were no differences between AUDIT-
C groups when observing competitive season status
(sample size).
• Three variables (psychosocial problems, sports-related
coping motives, and positive reinforcement motives)
emerged as significant predictors of hazardous drinking.
What We Found Continued
• The predictor variable that best distinguished
hazardous from non-hazardous student- athlete
drinkers was coping motives, then positive
reinforcement. – In other words, increases in coping motives leads to 7.28 times
greater odds of being a hazardous drinker.
– Positive reinforcement motives was the next strongest predictor;
increases in positive reinforcement motives leads to 3.59 greater
odds of being a hazardous drinker.
Study Limitations• All data collected were self-reported. Even though participants were
assured of anonymity, the truthfulness of the respondents could not
be determined.
• Data were collected utilizing convenience sampling procedures from
a single cohort of student-athletes attending a Division I university
located in the Southeastern United States. Thus, it is unclear if the
results generalize to first-year student-athletes in the same or other
competitive divisions, conferences, or geographical regions of the
United States, thereby compromising external validity.
• Further research with larger samples of first-year student-athletes
representing different campuses is necessary to validate these
findings.
• Despite these limitations, the present study makes an important
contribution to the literature on alcohol consumption among
collegiate student-athletes.
Discussion• Sport-related coping occurs throughout the year and not only during
in-season competition. These findings are particularly important
when attempting to prevent problematic drinking among first-year
student-athletes. Thus the need for prevention and intervention
programming throughout the academic year (i.e., during both in and
out-of season) for first-year student-athletes is imperative.
• Given the relatively high ratio of participants who screened positive
for hazardous drinking, it may be advantageous for colleges and
universities to integrate alcohol-screening protocols into existing
student-athlete health, wellness, and prevention programming.
Coping throughout
entire year
High % of SA
screened high for
hazardous drinking.
• Collegiate prevention and intervention strategies can be modified to
target the specific reasons for alcohol consumption. Given the
importance of sport-related coping motives in predicting hazardous
drinking, brief motivational interventions delivered to first-year
student-athletes can include a component that assists students in
enhancing coping skills and establishing a behavioral plan for
coping with sport-related stress.
• Additionally, because of the reported occurrence of alcohol-related
negative consequences among hazardous drinking, health
educators may wish to include personalized feedback on the
deleterious impact that alcohol use has on physical and mental
performance.
• In addition to learning about the harmful effects of alcohol on athletic
performance, first-year student-athletes also may benefit from
prevention programming that addresses their beliefs about the
positive effects of alcohol use, or alcohol outcome expectancies.
Discussion Continued
Questions
For additional information related to Alcohol and
other Drug Education programming or to request
a copy of this Webinar please contact:
Jarrett Sutton
National Center for Drug Free Sport
Thank you for your time.